No one can deny that pesticides have improved the ability of farmers to bring their crops to market. (1)_____ pesticides, farmers no longer have to worry that they will lose an entire crop (2)_____ an army of cut Worms or fruit flies. (3)_____, Americans can rely on a large and varied food supply. However, we Americans need to become more (4)_____ about the effects those pesticides on our food. More (5)_____, we need to think about what new (6)_____ is necessary to protect ourselves from a (7)_____ too rich in Pesticide residue. If we don"t demand greater (8)_____ on pesticide use, we may be surprised, dismayed, and (9)_____ horrified by the consequence of its use. On the most obvious level, farm workers who continue to use the pesticides (10)_____ their present rate will (11)_____ serious diseases. It"s no (12)_____ that farmers (13)_____ to herbicides have a six times greater risk of getting cancer. (14)_____, children who live in homes where pesticides are used have an increased chance of getting childhood leukemia(白血病). But the farmers are not the only ones (15)_____ risk. Consumers may also suffer serious side effects from daily (16)_____ of foods tainted(污染) by pesticides. Although scientists have yet to prove the link (17)_____, they are concerned that pesticide use may be one reason for the startling increase in various forms of cancer like breast and colon(结肠) cancers. We need new legislation that (18)_____ stricter standards governing pesticide residues in food. Much of the current legislation is based on ignorance. Simply (19)_____, we allow high levels of carcinogens in our food because we don"t know for sure that they do cause cancer in humans. Yet, why should we take the risk? If there"s a chance that a pesticide causes cancer, then it should be (20)_____ from use.

The Greatest Invention in the Past Century

When U. S. News started the college and university rankings 25 years ago, no one imagined that these lists would become what some consider to be the 800-pound gorilla of American higher education, important enough to be the subject of doctoral dissertations, academic papers and conferences, endless debate, and constant media coverage. What began with little fanfare" has spawned imitation college rankings in at least 21 countries or regions, including Canada, China, Britain, Germany, Poland, Russia, Spain, and Taiwan. Today, it"s hard to imagine there ever was a void of information to help people make direct comparisons between colleges, but such was the case in 1983 when we first ventured into the field. The editors back then, led by Marvin L. Stone, thought the project was worth attempting because a college education is one of the most important — and most costly — investments that people ever make. So the magazine designed a survey and sent it out to 1, 308 college presidents to get their opinions of which schools offered the best education. The winners: Stanford (National Universities) and Amherst (National Liberal Arts Colleges). That academic-reputation-only method was repeated in 1985 and 1987. In 1988, we started to use statistical data as part of the ranking methodology, evaluating those numbers along with the results of the survey. In 1997, in another pioneering step, the America"s Best Colleges rankings made the leap online at usnews. com. The online version, viewed by millions, has substantially more information and extended rankings than there is room for in the magazine. Of course, we"ve changed the ranking formula over the years to reflect changes in the world of higher education. In general, the biggest shift has been the move toward evaluating colleges less by the quality of the students they attract (inputs) and more by the success the school has in graduating those students (outputs). We operate under the guiding principle that the methodology should be altered only if the change will better help our readers compare schools as they"re making decisions about where to apply and enroll. Based on the success of the college rankings, we decided to expand the process to other levels of education. The America"s Best Graduate Schools rankings debuted in 1990 with annual listings of medical, engineering, law, business, and education schools. Our newest education ranking is America"s Best High Schools, first published in the fall of 2007. It identified the 100 best public schools out of more than 18,000 across the nation. Just as when we embarked on college rankings, setting up the process wasn"t easy, but it"s already proved to have enormous weight with our readers.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

It looks rather like a futuristic stretch limousine, but its actual function is rather more populist: the Superbus is a novel public-transport system being developed in the Netherlands by the Delft University of Technology. It is an electric bus designed to be able to switch seamlessly between ordinary roads and dedicated "supertracks", on which it can reach speeds of 250kph (155mph). It could thus present an alternative to much more expensive magnetic-levitation trains. Though it is as wide and long as a standard city bus, the Superbus is only 1. 7 metres high. Joris Melkert, the project"s manager, explains that the designers managed to keep the Superbus this small by doing away with the central aisle usually found in today"s buses, a vestigial design feature that allows passengers to stand upright, but also gives conventional buses the aerodynamic profile of a brick. The low-riding Superbus, in contrast, has a separate door for each of its 30-odd seats. The low ceiling and the use of lightweight materials make for a far more streamlined vehicle, which in turn requires only a modest electric motor: though engineers have not yet decided whether the Superbus will be powered by fuel cells or batteries, they estimate that it will be able to accelerate from rest to 100kph in a leisurely 36 seconds. The individual doors also allow for rapid loading and unloading of passengers, which will need to be fast if the Superbus is to live up to its promised door-to-door mission: instead of making predetermined stops, the vehicle will pick up and drop off passengers based on their text-messaged requests. This kind of flexibility is a central tenet of the project; the estimated three-year lifespan of a Superbus will also allow the latest technologies to be phased in quickly as they become available. To start with, that might include satellite-based tracking to keep the Superbus on course, sensors to scan the road for obstacles up to 300 metres ahead and a smart suspension system that remembers the rough spots in the road. Some detractors have suggested that making so many stops would erode the Superbus"s speed advantage, and others question whether a new cog in the Netherlands" already-intricate transport infrastructure is even needed. Furthermore, the Superbus does not yet exist, whereas maglev trains are already operating successfully in Shanghai. The future of the project is uncertain. Its intended route, a new transport link connecting Amsterdam with the northern city of Groningen, was recently scrapped by the Dutch government. In spite of the setback, the project has since received an extra 7m in government funding, plus lm from Connexxion, a local bus company. With its combination of low emissions, high speed and snazzy design, this might prove to be a bus that is worth waiting for.

Making good coffee is not a simple business. Coffee bushes must be grown in shade. A hillside is best—but it mustn"t be too (1)_____. After three years, the bushes will start to (2)_____ bright-red coffee "cherries", which are picked, processed to (3)_____ the inner part, and spread out to dry for days, (4)_____ on concrete. They are (5)_____ again to separate the bean, which needs to rest, preferably for a few months. Only then can it be roasted, ground and brewed (6)_____ the stuff that dreams are suppressed with. In Mexico and parts of Central America, (7)_____ in Colombia, most coffee farmers are smallholders. They found it especially hard to (8)_____ the recent fall in the coffee price. The (9)_____ of their income makes it hard for farmers to invest to (10)_____ their crop, says Fernando Celis. The fall forced many small farmers to (11)_____ other crops, or migrate to cities. For farmers, one way out of this (12)_____ is to separate the price they are paid (13)_____ the international commodities markets. This is the (14)_____ of Fair-trade, an organization which certifies products as "responsibly" sourced. Fair-trade determines at what price farmers make what it considers a (15)_____ profit. Its current (16)_____ is that the appropriate figure is 10% above the market price. (17)_____, sales of Fair-trade-certified coffee have increased from $22.5m per year to $87m per year since 1998. This is still a tiny fraction of the overall world coffee trade, worth $10 billion (18)_____ But there are plenty of other markets for high-quality coffee. Some small producers can (19)_____ more by marketing their coffee as organic or "bird-friendly" because, unlike large, mechanized plantations, they have (20)_____ shade trees.

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B

Partly due to a historical development marked by worldwide colonialism, urbanization, and globalization, in the course of this century humankind is likely to experience its most extreme cultural loss. As K. David Harrison notes in When Languages Die, "The last speakers of probably half of the world's languages are alive today." Their children or grandchildren are pressured to speak only the dominant language of their community or country. Under one estimate, more than 50% of the 6,900 or so languages identified nowadays are expected to become extinct in a matter of a few decades. The precise criteria for what counts as a distinct language are controversial—especially those regarding closely related linguistic systems, which are often inaccurately referred to as dialects of the same language. The problem is complicated by the insufficiency of studies about the grammar of many of the world's endangered languages. In addition, from a cognitive standpoint any two groups of individuals whose languages are mutually intelligible may in fact have distinct mental grammars. As a cognitive system, a language shows dynamic properties that cannot exist independently of its speakers. This is the sense in which the Anatolian languages and Dalmatian are extinct. Therefore, language preservation depends on the maintenance of the native-speaking human groups. Unfortunately, the most accelerated loss of distinct languages takes place where economic development is rapid, worsening the breakdown of minority communities that speak different languages. In this perspective, a language often begins to die long before the passing of the last speaker: New generations may start using it only for limited purposes, increasingly shifting to the community's dominant language. In this process, knowledge of the dying language erodes both at the individual level and at the community level. Linguistic diversity itself may be the worst loss at stake, because it may be the most promising and precise source of evidence for the range of variation allowed in the organization of the human cognitive system. For instance, Harrison discusses many strategies for manipulating quantities across languages, often endangered ones. The rapid loss of linguistic diversity substantially hinders comparative investigation about the multiple ways in which a single cognitive domain can be organized. Linguists are well aware that their efforts alone cannot prevent this loss. Community involvement, especially with government support, has proven essential in slowing or even reversing language loss in different cases(e.g., Basque and Irish). Crucially, endangered languages must be acquired by new generations of speakers. Here the biological metaphor adopted by Harrison applies appropriately — documentation of dead languages is akin to a fossil record, providing only partial clues about complex cognitive systems.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

Studythefollowinggraphcarefullyandwriteanessayin160-200words.Youressayshouldcoverthesetwopoints:1)problemsariseoutoftheincreaseoftheprivatecars,2)giveyourcounter-measure.Youshouldwriteabout160-200wordsneatly.

In a new list of the most powerful gay men and women in the country, out magazine has lots of household names at the top. But high among the rich and famous is Tim Gill. Huh? Who is he, and why is he ranked as the fourth most powerful gay person in the country? Gill is a 53-year-old snowboarder, retired computer programmer and multimillionaire. He made his fortune by founding Quark, the pioneering desktop publishing software company. After selling the firm, he started the Gill Foundation, which has invested $110 million nationwide in gay causes over the past decade. The Gill Action Fund threw $15 million into a dozen states during the 2006 midterm elections, targeting 70 politicians regarded as unhelpful to gay causes: 50 went down. And the fund is helping transform the political face of Colorado. In 2004, Gill"s money helped send Democrat Ken Salazar to the U.S. Senate. His dollars have also helped put Democrats in control of the Colorado legislature for the fast time in four decades. That could have an impact on the fate of the Two Parent Adoption Bill, currently being considered by Colorado legislators, which would allow gay couples to adopt. The proposal was rejected twice before, but that was before the statehouse switched from red to blue. Now Colorado Democrats have passed the bill in the House and expect it to pass the Senate. Impatient with the lack of gay rights progress this past decade, Gill is pushing hard to end injustice and inequality by the end of the next decade. And recognizing that most anti-gay initiatives are born at the state level, Gill has developed a national political strategy based on successes in Colorado. They"ve taken an in-state model and applied it to the entire country. Gill and his people are incredibly strategic. They put their funding where they can take control of legislatures. They"re putting them brilliantly in legislative environments where a few seats changing will change the entire control of a state. While Gill has recently opened a Washington office, his representatives, in keeping with past strategy, insist that no individual political targets have yet been chosen for 2008. Another formidable element of Gill"s power is his network of deep-pocketed allies in the mountain states. An hour south of Laramie, in Ft. Collins, lives medical equipment heiress Pat Stryker, who is, along with Gill (Actually Stryker is a billionaire; her brother Jon is gay and both give generously to gay causes.) What he has are extremely wealthy individuals who aren"t personally interested in running for anything but have this tremendous passion. Tim Gill is actually changing the political landscape.

War may be a natural expression of biological instincts and drives toward aggression in the human species. Natural (1)_____ of anger, hostility, and territoriality are expressed (2)_____ acts of violence. These are all qualities that humans (3)_____ with animals. Aggression is a kind of (4)_____ survival mechanism, an instinct for self-preservation that (5)_____ animals to defend themselves from threats to their existence. But, on the other hand, human violent (6)_____ evidence of being a learned behavior. In the case of human aggression violence can not be (7)_____ reduced to an instinct. The many expressions of human violence are always conditioned by social conventions that give (8)_____ to aggressive behavior. In human societies violence has a social (9)_____: It is a strategy for (10)_____ the powers of violence. We will look at the ritual and ethical patterns within which human violence has been (11)_____. The violence within society is controlled through (12)_____ of law. The more developed a (13)_____ system becomes, the more society takes responsibility for the discovery, control, and punishment of violence acts. In most tribal societies the only (14)_____ to deal with an act of violence is revenge. Each family group may have the responsibility of personally carrying out judgment and punishment (15)_____ the person who committed the offense. But in legal systems, the responsibility for revenge becomes depersonalized and (16)_____.The society assumes the responsibility for (17)_____ individuals from violence. In cases where they cannot be protected, the society is responsible for (18)_____ punishment. In a state controlled legal system, individuals are removed from the cycle of revenge (19)_____ by acts of violence, and the state assumes responsibility of their protection. The other side of a state legal apparatus is a state military apparatus. (20)_____ the one protects the individual form violence, the other sacrifices the individual to violence in the interests of the state.

Title: Violence on TVOutline: 1. Present state. 2. Harmness of violence programs on TV. 3. My comments. You should write about 160-200 words neatly.

[A]Modernmarketingisthereforeacoordinatedsystemofmanybusinessactivities.Butbasicallyitinvolvesfourthings:sellingthecorrectproductattheproperplace,sellingitatapricedeterminedbydemand,satisfyingacustomer'sneedandwants,andproducingaprofitforthecompany.[B]Becauseproductsareoftenmarketedinternationally,distributionhasincreasedinimportance.Goodsmustbeattheplacewherethecustomerneedthemorboughtthere.Thisisknownasplaceutility:itaddsvaluetoaproduct.However,manymarketsareseparatedfromtheplaceofproduction,whichmeansthatoftenbothrawmaterialsandfinishedproductsmustbetransportedtothepointswheretheyareneeded.[C]Thetermsmarketandmarketingcanhaveseveralmeaningsdependinguponhowtheyareused.Thetermstockmarketreferstothebuyingandsellingofsharesincorporations,aswellasotheractivitiesrelatedtostocktradingandpricing.TheimportantworldstockmarketsareinLondon,Geneva,NewYork,TokyoandSingapore.Anothertypeofmarketisagrocerymarket,whichisaplacewherepeoplepurchasefood.Wheneconomistsusethewordmarket,theymeanasetofforcesorconditionsthatdeterminethepriceofaproduct,suchasthesupplyavailableforsaleandthedemandforitbyconsumers.Thetermmarketinginbusinessincludesallthesemeanings,andmore.[D]Inthepast,theconceptofmarketingemphasizedsales.Theproducerormanufacturermadeaproducthewantedtosell.Marketingwasthetaskoffiguringouthowtoselltheproduct.Basically,sellingtheproductwouldbeaccomplishedbysalespromotion,whichincludedadvertisingandpersonalselling.Inadditiontosalespromotion,marketingalsoinvolvedthephysicaldistributionoftheproducttotheplaceswhereitwasactuallysold.Distributionconsistedoftransportation,storage,andrelatedservices,suchasfinancing,standardizationandgrading,andtherelatedrisks.[E]Marketingnowinvolvesfirstdecidingwhatthecustomerwants,anddesigningandproducingaproductthatsatisfiesthesewantsataprofittothecompany.Insteadofconcentratingsolelyonproduct,thecompanymustconsiderthedesiresoftheconsumer.Andthisismuchmoredifficultsinceitinvolveshumanbehavior.Production,ontheotherhand,ismostlyanengineeringproblem.Thus,demandandmarketforcesarestillanimportantaspectofmodemmarketing,buttheyareconsideredpriortotheproductionprocess.[F]Themodernmarketingconceptencompassesalloftheactivitiesmentioned,butitisbasedonadifferentsetofprinciples.Itsubscribestothenotionthatproductioncanbeeconomicallyjustifiedonlybyconsumption.Inotherwords,goodsshouldbeproducedonlyiftheycanbesold.Therefore,theproducershouldconsiderwhoisgoingtobuytheproduct,orwhatthemarketfortheproductisbeforeproductionbegins.Thisisverydifferentfrommakingaproductandthenthinkingabouthowtosellit.[G]Rawmaterialsrequiringlittleorspecialtreatmentcanbetransportedbyrail,shipofbargeatlowcost.Largequantitiesofrawmaterialstravelsasbulkfreightbutfinishedproductsthatoftenrequirespecialtreatment,suchasrefrigerationorcarefulhandling,areusuallytransportedbytruck,thismerchandisefreightisusuallysmallerinvolumeandrequiredquickerdelivery.Merchandisefreightisatermforthetransportationofmanufacturedgood.Alongallpointsofthedistributionchannelvariousamountsofstoragearerequired.Thetimeandmannerofsuchstoragedependsuponthetypeofproduct.Inventoriesofthisstoredmerchandiseoftenneedtobefinanced.Order:

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

America is one of many countries where the state gives a leg-up to members of certain racial, ethnic, or other groups【C1】______holding them to different standards. The details【C2】______. In some countries, the policy【C3】______only to areas under direct state control, such as public-works contracts or【C4】______to public universities. In others, private firms are also obliged to take【C5】______of the race of their employees, contractors and even owners.【C6】______the effects are strikingly similar around the world. Many of these policies were put in place with the best of intentions: to【C7】______for past injustices and purify their legacy. No one can deny that, 【C8】______, blacks in America have suffered awful wrongs, and continue to suffer【C9】______. Favouring members of these groups seems like a quick and effective way of making society【C10】______. Most of these groups have made great【C11】______. At the same time, the downside of affirmative action has become all too【C12】______. Awarding university places to black students【C13】______lower test scores than whites sounds reasonable,【C14】______the legacy of segregation. But a study found that at some American universities, black applicants who scored 450 points worse than Asians on entrance tests were【C15】______likely to win a place. That is neither fair on Asians, nor a(n) 【C16】______to blacks to study in high school. The book "Mismatch" produces evidence that【C17】______affirmative action reduces the number of blacks who【C18】______as lawyers by placing black students in law schools for which they are【C19】______, causing many to drop out. Had they attended less demanding schools, they might have【C20】______.

Do patents help or hinder innovation? Instinctively, they would seem a blessing. Patenting an idea gives its inventor a 20-year monopoly to exploit the fruit of his labor in the marketplace, in exchange for publishing a full account of how the new product, process or material works for everyone to see. For the inventor, that may be a reasonable trade-off. For society, however, the loss of competition through the granting sole rights to an individual or organization is justified only if it stimulates the economy and delivers goods that change people"s lives for the better. Invention, though, is not innovation. It may take a couple of enthusiasts working evenings and weekends for a year or two—not to mention tens of thousands of dollars of their savings—to get a pet idea to the patenting stage. But that is just the beginning. Innovations based on patented inventions or discoveries can take teams of researchers, engineers and marketing experts a decade or more, and tens of millions of dollars, to transfer to the marketplace. And for every bright idea that goes on to become a commercial winner, literally thousands fall by the wayside . Most economists would argue that, without a patent system, even fewer inventions would lead to successful innovations, and those that did would be kept secret for far longer in order to maximize returns. But what if patents actually discourage the combining and recombining of inventions to yield new products and processes—as has happened in biotechnology, genetics and other disciplines? Or what about those ridiculous business-process patents, like Amazoncom"s "one-click" patent or the "name-your-price" auction patent assigned to Priceline.com? Instead of stimulating innovation, such patents seem more about extracting "rents" from innocent bystanders going about their business. One thing has become clear since business-process patents took off in America during the 1990s: the quality of patents has deteriorated markedly. And with sloppier patenting standards, litigation has increased. The result is higher transaction costs all found. It is not simply a failure of the United States Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO)to examine applications more rigorously. The Federal Circuit has been responsible for a number of bizarre rulings. Because of its diverse responsibilities, the Federal Circuit—unlike its counterparts in Europe and Japan— has never really acquired adequate expertise in patent law. To be eligible for a patent, an invention must not just be novel, but also useful and non-obvious. Anything that relies on natural phenomena, abstract ideas or the laws of nature does not qualify. The USPTO has taken to requiring a working prototype of anything that supposedly breaches the laws of physics. So, no more perpetual-motion machines, please.

For me, scientific knowledge is divided into mathematical sciences, natural sciences or sciences dealing with the natural world (physical and biological sciences), and sciences dealing with mankind (psychology, sociology, all the sciences of cultural achievements. every kind of historical knowledge). Apart from these sciences is philosophy, about which we will talk later. In the first place, all this is pure or theoretical knowledge, sought only for the purpose of understanding, in order to fulfill the need to understand that is intrinsic and con-substantial to man. What distinguishes man from animals is that he knows and needs to know. If man did not know that the world existed, and that the world was of a certain kind, that he was in the world and that he himself was of a certain kind, he wouldn"t be man. The technical aspects or applications of knowledge are equally necessary for man and are of the greatest importance, because they also contribute to defining him as man and permit him to pursue a life increasingly more truly human. But even while enjoying the results of technical progress, man must defend the primacy and autonomy of pure knowledge. Knowledge sought directly for its practical applications will have immediate and foreseeable success, but not the kind of important result whose revolutionary scope is for the most part unforeseen, except by the imagination of the Utopians. Let me recall a well-known example. If the Greek mathematicians had not applied themselves to the investigation of conic section zealously and without the least suspicion that it might someday be useful, it would not have been possible centuries later to navigate far from shore. The first men to study the nature of electricity could not imagine that their experiments, carried on because of mere intellectual curiosity, would eventually lead to modern electrical technology, without which we can scarcely conceive of contemporary life. Pure knowledge is valuable for its own sake, because the human spirit cannot resign itself to ignorance. Butt in addition, it is the foundation for practical results that would not have been reached if this knowledge had not been sought disinterestedly.Notes:intrinsic 固有的。con-substantial 同体的。autonomy 自主性。zealously and without the least suspicion热情地并丝毫也没有想到。for the most part 大部分，主要地。Utopian乌托邦，理想主义。disinterestedly 不偏不倚地。resign oneself to 听任，顺从。

You are to inform Mrs. Benton that you will have to break the dinner engagement. Write a note to 1) make an apology, 2) state your reasons and 3) hope to meet in the near future. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

People, like most animals, are naturally lazy. So the ascent of mankind is something of a mystery. Humans who make their livings hunting and gathering in the traditional way do not have to put much effort into it. Farmers who rely on rain to water their crops work significantly harder, and lead unhealthier lives. But the real back-breaking is that carried out by farmers who use irrigation. Yet it was the invention of irrigation, at first sight so harmful to its practitioners that actually produced a sufficient surplus to feed the priests, scholars, artists and so on whose activities are collectively thought of as "civilization". In the past 10,000 years, the world"s climate has become temporarily colder and drier on several occasions. The first of these, known as the Younger Dryas, after a tundra-loving plant that thrived during it, occurred at the same time as the beginning of agriculture in northern Mesopotamia. It is widely believed that this was not a coincidence. The drying and cooling of the Younger Dryas adversely affected the food supply of hunter-gatherers. That would have created an incentive for agriculture to spread once some bright spark invented it. Why farmers then moved on to irrigation is, however, far from clear. But Harvey Weiss, of Yale University, thinks he knows. Dr. Weiss observes that the development of irrigation coincides with a second cool, dry period, some 8,200 years ago. His analysis of rainfall patterns in the area suggests that rainfall in agriculture"s upper-Mesopotamian heartland would, at this time, have fallen below the level needed to sustain farming reliably. Farmers would thus have been forced out of the area in search of other opportunities. Once again, an innovative spark was required. But it clearly occurred to some of these displaced farmers that the slow-moving waters of the lower Tigris and Euphrates, near sea level, could be diverted using canals and used to water crops. And the rest, as the cliché has it, is history. So climate change helped to intensify agriculture, and thus start civilization. But an equally intriguing idea is that the spread of agriculture caused climate change. In this case, the presumed criminal is forest clearance. Most of the land cultivated by early farmers in the Middle East would have been forested. When the trees that grew there were cleared, the carbon they contained ended up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Moreover, one form of farming—the cultivation of rice in waterlogged fields—generates methane, in large quantities. William Ruddiman, of the University of Virginia, explained that, in combination, these two phenomena had warmed the atmosphere prior to the start of the industrial era. As environmentalists are wont to observe, mankind is part of nature. These studies show just how intimate the relationship is.